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Ruddyard No-kipping’s Gunga Din

Mr Rudd (who sleeps 3hrs/night) spoke to journalists about his wife, Therese’s, condition after she recovered from a bad stomach ache: ”She’s made of sterner stuff than you or I, Gunga Din, and she is in good spirits.”

Cobbled from wiki: Gunga Din poem by Rudyard Kipling. The last line:

“Tho’ I’ve belted you and flayed you, By the livin’ Gawd that made you, You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!”

“The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer who saves the soldier’s life but dies himself. It celebrates the virtues of a non-European while revealing the racism of a colonial infantryman who views such people as being of a lower order.”

So that means Therese is made of sterner stuff than a water bearer who died for his master? Or that she’s treated like a slave? Lucky he didn’t quote the “belted you and flayed you” bit.